Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Security researcher gets threats over Amazon review

techcrunch.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

41–50 of 86 posts

Re: Security researcher gets threats over Amazon review

#41

Post by cm3 »

nostromo wrote: post #11
pmyjavec wrote: post #8

"The result is that the unique network ID of your socket is transported in an unencrypted form to the Chinese server" The use of The word "Chinese" in this article is amusing. Is it really important or necessary? Would it be preferable if the data was sent to a US server ?

If you're a US citizen, you would be a bit better off if it was a US server, because the records from the server would be available to the US court system. This is helpful if a customer ends up suing the company, or if there is a security breach that is investigated by US-based law enforcement. I agree, the inclusion does hint at Sinophobia. But it's also a valid detail for security conscious customers to consider.

It's the opposite. As a US citizen you have to be afraid of DC while Chinese citizens need to make sure they don't get on Beijing's radar and so on for each nation. It's a matter of under which jurisdiction you are and therefore which governing body has the most freedom-limiting power over you.

These devices are developed in China and hence have Chinese IPs for some call-home feature. As much as I want to be skeptical, I wonder what the HN community would say if it'd be a US or French IP.

Re: Security researcher gets threats over Amazon review

#43

Post by Magnets »

Sounds like the classic excuses you get from chinese sellers, they say their boss will punish them if you've left a bad review, aliexpress will punish their store, company will close etc.

It's no problem though, they can just keep sending out free review units to get their 4 and 5 star reviews. 2 verified purchases from 11 reviews, and one of those got it for free or heavily discounted "The AuYou Power Socket arrived very fast & was packaged well. I received it for an honest & unbiased review"

That is what's really killing Amazon reviews, free products in exchange for 5-star reviews.

Re: Security researcher gets threats over Amazon review

#45

Post by ohjeez »

mmanfrin wrote: post #27
maxerickson wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I sort of wonder if Amazon is the entity providing the discount. (I spent a minute trying to figure it out and didn't find anything)

Nope, there's a cottage industry of review-for-discount sites that give people discounts/free items in exchange for reviews, but wink wink don't feel obligated to give it 5 stars.

No winking is necessary.

Back when I was among the Top Amazon Reviewers, I'd regularly be asked to review products and (especially) books (primarily those that were self published). I rarely said yes, but when I did I treated them exactly the same as I would for a product I'd bought myself. That included 1- and 2-star reviews... though usually I tried to weed out the crap before saying Yes to such an offer.

The cost really never influenced me. I can afford a $10 novel that I'm interested in. So if you give me that book for free, it's no big deal.

In point of fact I learned to say No to most such offers. Usually novels are self-published only when the author cannot find a traditional publisher. And the traditional publishers usually refuse the book for a good reason. I don't want to waste my time reading crap.... not when there are so many good books to read instead.

Also, the self-published authors really didn't like it when I gave their books less than 5 stars, and magically the review would be downvoted -- as well as the last three unrelated items I'd reviewed. Presumably those neginators were from the author's friends and family. So I just said No, and moved on to books from authors I was sure I'd like.

Re: Security researcher gets threats over Amazon review

#46

Post by DanBC »

int_handler wrote: post #40
mmanfrin wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because it frames the situation in a certain, coerced way.

I am replying to your other comment here since it is not possible to reply to that comment for some reason. I do not think that is a valid comparison. The author did not go out of her way to point out that the server was located in China. There is no mention of China in the title, and the only place where the author mentions China is several paragraphs in explaining how and where the data is transmitted. There are mo…

> I am replying to your other comment here since it is not possible to reply to that comment for some reason.

I think HN applies a rate limiter to comment threads, to help reduce flame wars.

> Finally, for the record, I do not have a verified email associated with this account and thus do not have the ability to downvote.

Accounts get the downvote when they reach a karma threshold. I think that's currently 500, or maybe 750.

Re: Security researcher gets threats over Amazon review

#47

Post by StavrosK »

mmanfrin wrote: post #27
maxerickson wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I sort of wonder if Amazon is the entity providing the discount. (I spent a minute trying to figure it out and didn't find anything)

Nope, there's a cottage industry of review-for-discount sites that give people discounts/free items in exchange for reviews, but wink wink don't feel obligated to give it 5 stars.

I don't doubt you, but not everything is like this. Newark sent me a few free items (a BeagleBone and a CodeBug) a few months ago, so that I would review them, but on my condition that the review be honest.

I ended up publishing a glowing review of the CodeBug anyway (https://www.stavros.io/posts/codebug-review/), but that's because I sincerely enjoyed it. I didn't get around to doing anything with the BeagleBone, sadly. Maybe that's why they didn't send me anything else, though :P

Re: Security researcher gets threats over Amazon review

#48

Post by mmanfrin »

int_handler wrote: post #40
mmanfrin wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because it frames the situation in a certain, coerced way.

I am replying to your other comment here since it is not possible to reply to that comment for some reason. I do not think that is a valid comparison. The author did not go out of her way to point out that the server was located in China. There is no mention of China in the title, and the only place where the author mentions China is several paragraphs in explaining how and where the data is transmitted. There are mo…

It's still a fact used to frame the issue in a certain way and does affect a reader's understanding of the issue. If someone with a preexisting bias against Chinese security read this, they would form a more negative opinion of the product than if the fact of where the server was physically was omitted.

Re: Security researcher gets threats over Amazon review

#49

Post by StavrosK »

mannykannot wrote: post #25

The threat of being reported to Amazon isn't very threatening, and I was going to chide Techcrunch for being alarmist, but as I began to compose my post, I realized I couldn't come up with a good alternative word in this case, and skimming some online thesauri hasn't helped. Any suggestions? The thing is, if the company had followed through on its threat, the resulting headline would be much less attention-grabbing.…

I agree with you, I thought they were talking about death threats or similar. What happened was more that he got hassled than threatened.

Re: Security researcher gets threats over Amazon review

#50

Post by daveloyall »

joepvd wrote: post #33
mmanfrin wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nope, there's a cottage industry of review-for-discount sites that give people discounts/free items in exchange for reviews, but wink wink don't feel obligated to give it 5 stars.

Would the rep who claims to be in fear of losing her/his job be employed from that cottage industry? That would make the claim sound a bit more plausible, assuming, of course malice in the review-for-discount corps.

I bet you are on to something. But I have never heard of this review-for-discount concept.

I have heard of organizations like this: http://revleap.me/ (I'm sure these guys are completely innocent, they just happened to come up in a DDG search for "get positive amazon reviews".)

If you search for "work from home" you will find lots of shady organizations paying people (pennies) to post reviews, for example on Google Maps.

It's not a huge leap to imagine a service which pays random online workers to contact negative reviewers with sob stories begging for the review to be removed. And it's not hard to imagine that a disposable worker such as that would indeed be fired (simply not offered additional work) if s/he fails to get a review removed.

The organization I linked too shows a picture of what appears to be some kind of negative review alert delivered to a smart phone.

Post reply on HN